skirtcafe.org

Skirt Cafe is an on-line community dedicated to exploring, promoting and advocating skirts and kilts as a fashion choice for men, formerly known as men in skirts. We do this in the context of men's fashion freedom --- an expansion of choices beyond those commonly available for men to include kilts, skirts and other garments. We recognize a diversity of styles our members feel comfortable wearing, and do not exclude any potential choices. Continuing dialog on gender is encouraged in the context of fashion freedom for men. See here for more details.

weeladdie18 wrote:There are two options.....We must do our market research.... If we wish to wear female clothes and not stand out in a crowd; then we should dress the in the same style as the average female in the crowd at our chosen location..... Market research may show that there are very few skirt wearing females in the crowd.......................I regularly dine out in a café. There are very few females who wear traditional fashion skirts in this environment.

One of the wags (I think it's Charlie) here likes to comment that, "If I wanted to dress like a woman I'd wear jeans." I've been known to use that crack in public from time to time, usually to hilarious results -- especially when the interlocutor is so attired.

weeladdie18 wrote:I would suggest that the obvious choice for a man is simply to replace his Trousers with a suitable well fitting Traditional female style skirt.

Offhand, I'd just drop the words "female style" from the above and be done with.

I gave up using the terms "men's" and "women's" clothing quite some time ago and started using "male-marketed" or "female-marketed" instead denoting what the seller's "target audience" is. It's not the fault of the garment; it's the fault of seller and of society.

It's so low a snake can walk over it without even hopping. "Clean grunge." Thanks, Zuckerberg. Thanks a lot.

Sorry to read that you look at one of my styles so low. I believe it is all about how the person puts the outfit together. My latest "business casual" was posted on the thread "Men can rock skirts too!"

Personal style is important to me. Even when my outfits may contain skirts, tights and great ankle or riding length boots! I enjoy fashion and am excited to get in on the conversations with the like minded!

Feeling freedom wrote:Sorry to read that you look at one of my styles so low. I believe it is all about how the person puts the outfit together. My latest "business casual" was posted on the thread "Men can rock skirts too!"

That was not a shot at you, sir, it was a shot at what the notion of "business casual" has morphed into in the past couple of decades. Rest assured that there was nothing personal in that whatsoever.

It's worth noting here that I'm old enough to have worked in situations where jackets and ties were required for the men and skirts/dresses for the women. This was fine for the world of finance and banking, but I was working in a world of machinery which sometimes could move very quickly and without warning, and also on devices that were unspeakably filthy (think gallons of kerosene-based ink flowing around in troughs and over fountains). One learnt to tuck his tie into his shirt very, very, quickly. I wish that black dress shirts were available at the time; it would have saved me a lot of cash. At least everybody was more or less presentable, although at office-meetings it was trivial to tell the field-service staff from the sales folks...

Then we got "casual Fridays" and whilst the guys largely stuck to the old school stuff, the women started wearing stirrup-pants (which were all the rage at the time) and things, well, went pear-shaped rather quickly. By the time it went to "business casual" all the time, pyjamas were not unheard-of.

Then we got Zuckerberg. A new low. At least his handlers dressed him somewhat properly for his grilling in front of the US Congress.

I think my situation is just a bit different. My office attire until the beginning of this year was suit and tie. The only day that we did not have to wear the tie was on Friday, where a polo shirt and slacks (no jeans) were allowed. My boss is very old school when it comes to dressing for the work place, however, he understood the resistance and the expense to adhere to our company dress code, and so as part of your monthly salary he also included a clothing allowance which was very generous. The ladies still complained that it wasn't fair that men could wear the same suit almost daily but they had to wear something different everyday. I always wondered why women felt they had to wear different each day but I also envied the freedom they had to do so. I had black, navy blue, and gray suits. The ladies wore various shades of greens, reds, yellows, purples, blues, long with the black, navy and grays. Now, that I wear a skirt to the office I am getting to exercise that freedom of color. Also, I am not forced to wearing black or brown shoes. I can now wear red, yellow, blue and yes even white (after Easter).

Now back to the topic of this thread. When wearing a skirt while not in the office, I am among the few wearing a skirt as most others (women or men) are wearing pants, leggings, or shorts. Also, I am most likely the "only" person wearing (high) heels. Am I overdressed, yes! How many women theses days wear high heels to a movie theater or other public places? None! but I do. Do I draw attention to myself? Yes, I do. Would I draw less attention if I only wore a skirt and say, flats? Yes! Would a women wearing a skirt and high heels draw the same attention? Yes she most likey would! Why? Because she would be considered overdressed as well. Point being, regardless of being a male or female, if you don't fit in (overdressed or even under-dressed) then attention will find you. It's not skirt, it's the environment around you. Me? I don't mind the attention, or the looks, or the snickers I often hear. But, I also enjoy the nice compliments I very often get (more than you would think). To me, being confident in what you are wearing is comfortable. Being comfortable adds to the confidence. If I feel under-dressed then I am just not comfortable in what I am doing and if it takes wearing high heels to feel comfortable then that's what I will wear.

I was told I have balls for wearing skirts! My reply? "That's because balls this big won't fit in pants!"

We all have our different reasons for what we choose to wear. And since we are doing something out of the norm we want to do it right. Not all of us are able to reach Mark's or Jeff's level of accomplishment But that still doesn't deter us form trying to do it right and yes in many instances we are "overdressed"

Since I joined the café I think I have made major progress in my choices. And I am going to do my best to be Again "Overdressed" I take special care to make sure what I wear is coordinated and as best I can a step above .

I have gotten a few comments good and bad and I am sure that I will get future comments. I am just happy when the comments are about what I am wearing and not about how I am wearing it.

Excellent question Jeff. Once I started wearing skirts I gradually became more conscious of my overall look. I think that was 50% concern that if I was looking unusual it would be best if I at least looked well put together, and 50% opportunity to indulge in new looks. I suddenly found formal looks appealing and wore ties with my skirts to work quite often. I also pay a lot more attention to coordination now. The results of coordination are more pronounced because skirts are more prominent areas than pants, and the colour possibilities in pants are quite narrow by comparison. It's really hard to find pink or teal pants, but I have skirts in both of those.

So expanding my range was sort of followed by more attention to how well-dressed I was. I almost always err on the side of over-dressing. For example, wearing a tie to a meeting where no one else will be wearing one. This has been noticed by my coworkers and friends, but always in an appreciative manner. The one person who laments my slight over-dressing is my wife who sometimes says that she feels self-conscious about looking underdressed next to me.

At first, when all I wore for skirts was Utilikilts, I did the careless grunge look a bit, but that was actually dressing down for me and I only did it defensively to assert a masculine ruggedness to compensate for my anxiety over being considered femme for being in a skirt. In contrast I think slight overdressing says "I'm proud of the way I look" and signals confidence where underdressing really does not.

To underdress is actually very easy as the great unwashed prove every day in ways that are quite amusing. But as Carl, Daryl, Jeff and many others on this site have said it takes a certain panache to look good nowadays. Once learned it can become second nature to maintain our desired individual styles but even then we can make mistakes. All we can do is keep trying. I side with Daryl in that I would wear a tie and formal shirt with a skirt and have done so. In certain situations the effect is good. I know that many on this site dislike ties, claiming tightness around the throat but if you are wearing the correct collar size there should be no tightness.

I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.

Now Mark, that's not underdressing - you still look smart even though you are wearing slightly fewer items. Underdressing has nothing to do with the number of items but more to do with how close to slovenly your final look is. The top and skirt don't look cheap and nasty so don't be modest.

I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.

Judging from the responses, it's clear we all have our own ideas as to what it means to overdress or underdress, depending on our own tastes when it comes to fashion, and I see that as a good thing as my idea of fashion differs from say Mark or oldsalt or Sinned, just to name a few. We all know what we want out of the clothes we wear and the look we want to present to the world at large, so some of us, that comes easily, to others, it takes lots of practice and trial and error, not even I get it right every time, but I enjoy working hard to look my very best, as should we all.

JeffB1959 wrote:... We all know what we want out of the clothes we wear and the look we want to present to the world at large, so some of us, that comes easily, to others, it takes lots of practice and trial and error, not even I get it right every time, but I enjoy working hard to look my very best, as should we all.

I think I have a different opinion. As one who attempts to follow Jesus, I hear him say,

Jesus wrote:And why do you worry about clothes? Consider the lilies in the field and how they grow. They don’t work or spin yarn, but I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. [Matthew 6]

I try to not worry a lot about how I look. I also believe I look my best dressed the way God made me, but that can create difficulties with others sometimes.